


The Wrath Of Jedediah Shine

by libertyelyot



Category: Ripper Street
Genre: BDSM kink, F/M, Porn Without Plot Except There Is Kind Of A Plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-10-25 00:50:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10753266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/libertyelyot/pseuds/libertyelyot
Summary: You've got to pick a pocket or two, boys, but make sure one of those pockets doesn't belong to Jedediah Shine.





	1. You've Got To Pick A Pocket Or Two

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I'd written this so-and-so out of my system but apparently not. I hope you will find it most excessively diverting.

Jedediah Shine had always found dusk to be an interesting time in Limehouse.

After the muted bustle of the day, the streets grew thick with dockers trudging homewards, taking their evening baked potato or tray of oysters from one of the many corner stalls. They were joined by girls from the factories – you could tell which ones came from Bryant and May in Bow by their disintegrating jaws and haunted eyes – and knots of drunken sailors looking for sport.

That sport was provided by the many brothels and drinking houses lining the streets, although some wanted more than a pint and a grope, and those connoisseurs slipped into the side alleys that led to the waterside opium dens.

As Jedediah threaded his way through the crowds on his way home from the police station, he became aware of a subtle tugging sensation at the lower portion of his waistcoat – so subtle that it might have eluded a man less acquainted with these streets and their ways. But no man was better acquainted with both than Jedediah Shine, and this particular pickpocket had made a grievous error.

Without breaking stride, he closed his hand around a thin wrist. The wrist was attached to a fistful of his fob watch chain. He twisted the captive flesh in an eye-watering Chinese burn, hearing with satisfaction the sharp cry of pain that rewarded this move.

“You chose the wrong man to prig from tonight, my lad,” he said, but his eyes narrowed as they took in the detail of the offender. “Beg pardon, my _girl_ ,” he corrected himself, allowing himself to loosen his grip a little.

She was as small as a boy, but she was no child – a young woman, in a poor state but pretty enough underneath it, with startling blue eyes that shone defiance despite her predicament.

The loosening of his grip proved to be a mistake and he cursed himself for letting her catch him off-guard as she kneed him hard in a very painful place and made off, still in possession of the watch.

Roaring with anger, Jedediah gave chase, once he had recovered from the breath-robbing shock of the assault. The girl was swift and clearly knew these streets, but he knew them just as well, following her down the darkest alleys and through the meanest courts, knocking aside the people she was able to dodge around.

Slipping on some slimy old cabbage leaves, he almost fell heavily, but managed to right himself without injury, grabbing a jutting brick for purchase and launching himself back into the pursuit. Within a few minutes, his greater strength and longer legs paid the inevitable dividend, and he had the girl by the scruff of her dirty neck – literally collared. He slammed her against the wall, holding her by her throat, and was gratified to see some of that defiance dimmed, replaced by appropriate fear.

“I need bread, sir,” she gasped through the restrictions his hold placed on her vocal cords. “Please don’t hurt me. Just…hungry…”

She dropped the watch on to the cobbles. Without loosing his grip, Jedediah bent slightly at the knees to retrieve it.

“And an honest day’s work didn’t occur to you, I suppose?”

“I’ve nowhere to live, sir, nobody will give me work.”

“Workhouse is just around the corner from here.”

“I couldn’t…”

“And you never thought of earning a crust the easy way? On your back?”

“If that’s what you take me for, you can fuck yourself.”

He bent his face closer to hers.

“I prefer not to,” he said darkly. “Company’s always best for that kind of recreation.”

She swallowed and shut her eyes.

“If that is your price, sir, then…if you must…”

“My price for what?”

She opened her eyes.

“For not having me arrested, sir,” she said.

He smiled, enjoying the way she squirmed, both literally and figuratively, against his implacable force.

“If I was going to have you arrested, I’d have done it by now,” he said. “What with me being the man in charge of the copshop up on West India Dock Road.”

Her confusion was exquisite to him.

“You’re not a copper. Where’s your uniform?”

“I’m too high up in the ranks for that folderol, girl. Detective Inspector Jedediah Shine – I would say ‘at your service’ but that’s not quite how things stand between us, is it?”

She matched his gaze unswervingly, still refusing to be entirely cowed by him.

“Then do it, sir. Arrest me. Take me in. At least I’ll get something to eat and a night’s rest.”

“Well,” he said slowly, chuckling under his breath. “I could do that, I suppose.”

She began to struggle in earnest now, clearly unnerved by his failure to name her fate.

“Or…” he continued, drawing it out, enjoying his power over her. “I might have a use for someone of your talents. How long have you been prigging, girl?”

“About a year.”

“And how often have you been lifted?”

“Never,” she said proudly. “Till now.”

“Well, ain’t that interesting? I shall have to have a word with my constables. Can’t have them bested by a slip of thing like you, can I? Who do you fence to?”

She shook her head, as far as she could within the constraints of his grip.

“Don’t ask me to grass, I won’t do it.”

“Oh, honour among thieves, how noble,” he sneered. He tightened his grip, watching her eyes bulge and her pale skin take on a bluish tinge.

“Solomon Lipski,” she croaked in defeat. “Please…”

“I know the man,” said Jedediah. “Had my eye on him for a while now. But that’s by the by. For now, we need to think about what to do with you.”

She was thoroughly intimidated now. The rest should be easy enough, as long as he didn’t let her near his crown jewels again. At least, not in that way. He dismissed the image of her lips wrapped around his erect cock and returned to business.

“Don’t send me to prison,” she whispered. “My brother died in Pentonville, of gaol fever.”

Jedediah allowed himself a moment of private triumph at this easy breaking, then relaxed his stranglehold and let her slump back against the wall.

“Lucky that I have other plans for you, then, ain’t it?” he said, smiling and grazing his knuckles down her thin, smutted cheek.

The look she raised to him was defeated, submissive.

“If you will name them, I’ll try to oblige, sir,” she said.

“What do they call you?” he asked gently.

The minuscule pause and the flicker of her eye before she said, “Jess” spoke to Jedediah’s long experience of dealing with liars.

“No,” he said matter-of-factly. “I cannot be played with, girl. Your name, now.”

She sighed. “Nancy.”

“Well, then, Nancy.” He offered her his arm. Hesitantly, making sure he did not jest first, she took it. “When did you last eat a decent meal?”

“I don’t recall.”

He led her around the corner to a chop house he sometimes used to meet informants. Having ordered victuals and drink from the obsequious waiter, he turned his attention once more to his captive prey.

“You’re small and quick and you don’t stand out in a crowd,” he said to her. “Can you read?”

“A little, sir. I went to the board school till I was eleven.”

“Not that it probably signifies, but it might come in handy, for what I have in mind.”

She stared at him silently, waiting for him to elaborate. Her eyes really were striking, but if she kept them lowered you could be forgiven for not noticing. Everything else about her was perfectly unremarkable, drab and mousy, as if she were born to blend in.

“I have a man I want watching,” he said. “I have somebody to keep on eye on him at his work, but it strikes me that perhaps I should have somebody following him outside of that.”

“You want me to spy?”

“Do you take exception to that?”

“No, sir, not at all. But tell me more of what I’m expected to do.”

“I will give you his home address. I will want you to keep your eyes on it at all times, and follow him to and from it, wherever he may go. It’ll mean keeping watch at night, but you can sleep in the day, when he is at his work. Take note of the places he visits and the company he keeps – and I want every detail, nothing is too unimportant – and bring your report to me each day. What do you say?”

“Will you pay me?”

Shine laughed.

“I have kept you out of prison – what more do you want?”

“I need to live,” she said.

The food appeared, together with a jug of wine. She fell upon it like a desert traveller at an oasis. Shine watched her with detached interest, pouring the wine. She drained her cup in one draught and poured herself another.

Something about the starved vigour of her appetite appealed to him. He felt the stirrings of an interest that transcended the pragmatic.

“I can see that,” he said dryly. “All right then. I can offer you free board and lodging.”

“And a shilling a week,” she said through a mouthful of food.

“And a clip round the ear,” growled Shine. “Free board and lodging and protection from arrest – that is my final offer.”

She swallowed and took another swig from her cup.

“It’s better than sleeping in abandoned warehouses, with rats,” she admitted. “As long as the lodgings are good.”

“They’re very good,” he said. “You’ll share them with me.”

He smirked at the open dismay in her otherwise guarded face.

“What’s that look for? A man could take offence.”

“Do you mean…your bed, sir?” she faltered.

“When I’m not in it,” he said, although he already had designs on changing her mind about the closeness of the sharing arrangement.

She nodded, the breath she released making her chest heave.

“Why, do you have some light-fingered sweetheart somewhere?” he asked idly. “Can I expect to be challenged to a duel?”

“No, there is nothing like that.” She took a swig of her drink and muttered, “Not any more.”

“Not any more?”

“I was living with a man, a docker, till a year ago, but he was killed in an accident while unloading a cargo.”

“You got young’uns?”

“Do I look stupid?” she said scornfully. “What would I want to bring children into a world like this for?”

“Good point,” said Jedediah. “Hard enough to keep body and soul together as it is, eh?”

“You said it. When he died, I lost my factory job. They didn’t hold with grieving, especially since we weren’t never married. So I lost my lodging. And here you see me now, reduced to this.”

“Another man might’ve kept you,” Shine mentioned, watching her reaction to this suggestion with interest.

“I didn’t want another man,” she said.

“Not even to keep the wolf from the door?”

“I don’t care about the wolf. The wolf can tear my throat out, for all it matters to me.”

Suddenly, to Shine’s discomfiture, she slumped her head on to her arms and sobbed.

“You’re very tired, I think,” he said, calling the waiter over to settle the bill. “Let’s get you home.”

She offered no resistance when he slid his arm around her to bring her to her feet, shuffling along pressed to his side for the length of the short distance between the chop house and his square, brown-brick terrace in one of Limehouse’s few respectable streets.

He was a little intrigued by her, much as he would have disdained the suggestion. She was clearly a young woman of some independent spirit, and yet life had beaten her down, as it did to so many of the souls he shared this district with. Since the abrupt departure from his life of Blush Pang, he had sometimes toyed with the idea of getting himself a replacement, but his opportunities to meet women who were not of the criminal classes were rare, and he avoided congress with the local tarts for fear of contaminating his body with poxes.

But this girl seemed to be made of the right sort of stuff. With a good scrub and a bit of meat on her bones, who could say that she might not suit to fill his vacancy?

“Mrs Higgins,” he called to the housekeeper he kept in the basement. “Draw a bath.”


	2. Consider Yourself At Home

He was always careful not to over-indulge in cigars, for tobacco tended to shorten the breath, and he needed his lungs in good condition. However, tonight seemed like the perfect night for sitting in his wing chair by the fire and puffing out clouds of fragrant smoke.

The sound of splashing from the next room gave him a sense of pleasurable anticipation. He tried not to picture the girl’s naked body in the water, but it hung there at the back of his mind like a mural, stubbornly refusing to cover itself no matter what other subject matter he tried to bring to the foreground.

“It’s been too long, lad,” he muttered to himself, stubbing out the cigar.

There was an almighty sloshing – she was standing up, all newly-scrubbed and white, except for the little pink buds of her nipples and the triangle of light brown hair… enough of that, he admonished himself, trying instead to imagine some shocking disfigurement.

There was a silence that seemed to stretch out across the dark London sky through the window, then at last, she poked her head around the door and asked, “Have you a hairbrush, sir?”

He went to the dresser and brandished it at her.

“Come in here. I’ll brush it for you,” he offered.

“Oh...no, I can do it myself.”

His reply was to take a cushion from his chair, sit back down, place the cushion at his feet then beckon her towards it.

“Come and sit down,” he said, brooking no argument.

“I’m not properly dressed.”

“Fine airs and graces for a street pickpocket,” sneered Jedediah. “But you’re in my house and you’ll do as you’re told.”

Reluctantly, she edged into the room, clad only in a cunningly draped towel.

“You scrub up well,” remarked Jedediah, noting how different she looked now. Why, her hair was a shade or two lighter than he had thought, and her skin was free of pits and pockmarks, although she was copiously bruised about the shins. The fingermarks on her wrist and throat were his doing, he recalled; he rather regretted using such force now.

“Sit by the fire and warm yourself,” he said.

She perched on the cushion and he felt a dryness at the back of his throat, at having this young woman sitting at his feet. _Much too long._

He took a handful of damp, draggled hair and ran the brush through it, slowly and considerately, working on the tangles without wrenching at her scalp.

“You don’t own a comb?” he said.

“I did. Broke it. Oh, that feels nice.”

“Should I have been a ladies’ hairdresser?” He brushed on, running his fingers through the slippery wet locks, remembering another girl who’d liked to have her hair brushed. Hers had been raven black and sheer as glass, reaching down to her tailbone when unpinned. Nancy’s was shorter and finer with a wave to it.

“Not too much call for it round here,” said Nancy.

“A woman’s crowning glory, do they not say?”

“Something for lice to crawl in,” countered Nancy, causing Jedediah to drop the tress he’d been tending to. “I haven’t got lice, don’t worry. You can check if you want. No bites. No itchy patches. I’m clean enough for now.”

“But you weren’t always?” He parted her hairs to see that her scalp was clear. It was.

“Living rough ain’t a picnic, Inspector. I thought of shaving it all off not so long ago. Thought I could pass as a boy. Might be safer.”

Jedediah kept brushing, trying to resist the rogue impulse of pity that threatened him.

“Well, you’re safe now,” he said. “And no need to cut anything off.”

“Inspector Shine to the rescue,” she said, a hint of mockery in her tone. “What a gent.”

“Steady now,” he warned. “I won’t take any cheek.”

“So what will you take?” She turned to face him, devilment in her eyes.

He laid the hairbrush on his lap and stared back at her impassively. Was he about to be made an offer?

“Come on, don’t pretend you don’t understand me,” she said. “Here’s a girl, defenceless and homeless and nearly naked, in the chambers of a gentleman. I’d be even stupider than I look not to have an inkling of what’s in your mind.”

He leant forward.

“Oh? You can read my mind, can you?” he said, with soft menace. “Go on, then.”

“And I don’t mind, not really,” she said, with only a little hesitation. “You’re good-looking enough and I’ve missed being touched…really missed it…didn’t realise how much until you brushed my hair.” She swallowed. “If you want to kiss me, I don’t mind.”

She was trying to look brave and insouciant, but he could sense the vulnerability behind it, and it made him want her all the more. He put his palm to her cheek and stroked along the cheekbone with his thumb.

“You don’t mind? What if a kiss isn’t enough for me? What then?”

She knelt up on the cushion, leaning into his knees. He was conscious of her breasts inside the towel, pressing into his flesh. His grip on her face tightened and he swallowed aridity.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I know what men want.”

A thousand objections lurked in the further recesses of Jedediah’s rarely-troubled conscience. She wasn’t doing this because she wanted to. She classed him with all other men, when he was not all other men, he was something more than that. She sought to negotiate with him, using sex as her bargaining chip. He had wanted to seduce her, not take what he wanted so easily. There must be a catch involved. He would regret this. _He would regret this._

But, despite it all, he couldn’t argue with warm female flesh, offering itself to him so sweetly.

He yanked her up on to his lap and pulled her into a hungry kiss. She was not shy, not reticent about her desires. She returned everything he offered twofold, clutching at his lapels, grinding her slight frame against his larger one.

“Your moustache tickles,” she whispered, grinning like an imp, her eyes shining.

“Tickles better somewhere else,” he growled.

“I like that,” she said. “Could never bear a clean-shaven man. You might be a copper, but you kiss like a scoundrel.”

“Who says a man can’t be both?” Jedediah plunged once more into the hot sweetness of her mouth, exploring its secrets with an imperious tongue. She twisted in his grasp, moaning into his throat. It was like having a soft, pliant little eel in his arms and he was far from averse to it. Who could have forecast that a grimy little prig like this could bring him to such a triumphant cockstand?

If she was telling the truth about never having whored in her life, she ought to seriously consider it. The girl was a natural.

“Strikes me,” he said, his hand creeping inside the folds of her towel in search of her breasts, “that there’s only one bed for the two of us. Might I invite you to join me in it?”

“Oh, good sir, indeed you may,” she said, in a simpering mock-ladylike tone. “For I ain’t slept in a proper bed since ever so long.”

“I wouldn’t count on getting much sleep,” he said, lifting her into his arms as he rose from the armchair. She squealed with laughter as he threw her down on the groaning mattress and set to removing his clothes.

But she tempted him too much, unwrapping her towel as he pulled at his necktie and revealing her pert breasts and golden-curled triangle. She rolled over, displaying to him her rounded bottom, and Jedediah could not delay any longer. Still in his shirt and boots, he pounced on her, sucking and biting at her succulent neck and shoulders, running his hands all over the ins and outs of her body. She was small of frame but swelling out in all the right places, just the way he liked a woman, if he could choose, just the way Blush Pang had been.

“On your back, you little devil,” he commanded, nudging her into the required position. “Let’s have a good look at you.”

She stretched her arms out above her head with negligent lasciviousness, showing her breasts to their best advantage. Jedediah traced their outlines with fingertips and tongue, damping them with his hot breath and teasing her nipples from dusky pink to dark red while she moaned and squirmed underneath him. Meanwhile, one hand planted itself between her thighs, curious to know if she truly felt the excitement she evinced. According to the dewy evidence on his fingers, she was indeed as enthusiastic a partner to this sport as he was. He rubbed at her, lazily, feeling her tender bud swell in accordance with his attentions, watching her face transfigure as control ebbed away from her and flowed into him.

“You like that, eh?” he murmured, finding her wetter and more slippery by the minute.

“Oh, you are good,” she sighed. “So good. Ohhh, so gooood.”

He smiled with satisfaction, enjoying her enjoyment. He had not lost the art, then.

She put her hands to the sides of his face and pulled him down into another rapturous kiss.

“Thank you,” she said, stroking his whiskers, rubbing her nose against his. “Let me give you something in return. Take off your boots, Inspector, and your shirt.”

Jedediah, by now as painfully engorged as he had ever been, was quick to comply. He allowed Nancy the standard minute or so of awe in the face of the Shine physique, then he returned to the bed, in the manner of an animal stalking through the jungle. Nancy giggled as he made a swipe for her, and eluded him, clinging on to the rails of the brass footboard for safety.

“I want to suck you off,” she said, her eyes fixed on his erection. “I ain’t never seen such a beauty as that.”

Did she mean it, or was she up to something? He did not much care, and after all, it was a pretty decent specimen, from what he’d seen to compare it with at the boxing gym. He sat back against the pillows, a pasha in charge of his harem.

“Come on then,” he invited. “Put that pretty mouth where it’s most wanted. No teeth, mind.”

“I wouldn’t,” she assured him, scampering between his legs and wrapping a hand around the girth of his manhood. “At least, you hope not.” She flashed a grin up at him and he raised his eyebrows.

“ _You_ hope not,” he corrected. “You would not like the wrath of Jedediah Shine, my dear, I can assure you of that.”

“I will do my best to steer clear of it, then,” she said, stroking him up and down with markedly pleasant effects. There was a fluttering in his abdomen, a tightening lower down. She ran her thumb over his shiny tip, wetting it with his own fluid, licking it off with her saucy tongue.

_If I ever turn whoremaster, this is the first girl I’m hiring_ , he thought, his eyelids heavy as her manipulations caused him to feel unfamiliar weakness in his legs.

Her warm, wet mouth closed around him and he exhaled heavily. She cupped his taut sacs in her palm, massaging them gently as she began to suckle him, flicking her tongue along the most sensitive part of the column.

“ _Jesus._ ” Jedediah was unmoored, floating in a bath of blissful sensation. He might have to keep hold of this one, if he could. He looked down at her damp hair flicking lightly over her pale skin, her lowered eyes, her round little mouth stretched around him, the bulge in her cheek, the jiggling of her breasts as she worked doggedly to bring him closer…and closer…and closer…

Much as he wanted to eke it out, he was unable to prevent a sudden and unstinting spending into her throat. She did not jump back, exclaiming with disgust and reaching for the water glass, as had been Blush Pang’s wont. Instead, she kept him there in her mouth until he was drained, only then dragging her lips slowly up his detumescing shaft and lifting her cat-got-the-cream face to him for a wanton lick of the lips.

“What a lot you’ve got,” she said.

“Oh, for you, girl…” he managed to say, tipping his head back and rolling his eyes ceilingwards.

“You kept it all for me?” she suggested.

“I’ve got more where that came from,” he promised, gathering her up and lying down with her, limbs mingled, damp skin on skin. He yawned. “If you don’t mind waiting a spell…just give it a minute or two…”

The minute or two drifted into several, and from thence into a sated repose. It had been a long day, and a hard one, as all such days were in K Division, and the little imp really had sucked the energy out of him, but she would get the rogering of her life once he was back on form and hard again, just see if she didn’t…

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

He woke up in darkness. The candle was out and something was… He moved his wrist and found that it stopped dead, held in place.

“What the blazes…?” He tried to sit up, but the way his wrists were tethered to the bedposts with a necktie and a dressing gown cord precluded the movement. _That little bitch!_

He set to releasing himself – really, it wasn’t too difficult; she was no expert. As he worked on the easy knots, he heard stealthy motion from the front room. She was still in the house!

He heard drawers opened and shut, keys turned in presses, all as quietly as could be, but just loud enough to reach his ears. A sleeping man would never have been roused. But Jedediah Shine was not a sleeping man, and now he was released from his bonds and of a mind to investigate.

He opened the connecting door in practised silence and watched through the crack as Nancy ransacked the room by the light of a candle, looking for money or valuables or anything she could take back to the streets with her.

He waited until she knelt with her back fully to him, rooting through an old chest beneath the window. The chest contained old treasures from his time in Hong Kong, most of them of only moderate value, but of significance to him. One or two were very valuable. He wondered if she had a skilled enough eye to determine which.

He did not care enough to postpone his strike, however. Crossing the floor with bare feet, avoiding the floorboards he knew to creak, he stopped behind her and watched her body sway and twitch as she sorted through the chest’s contents. The cheeky little bitch had dressed herself in a pair of his long johns with a shirt over the top, all of them outsize, the leggings wrinkled all the way up.

He took a breath and clapped a hand down on her shoulder. She did not scream, but her body stiffened beneath his hand and remained immobile, as if trying to convince him she was a corpse in rigor mortis.

“Now I wonder,” he said, “what you think you might be doing?”

All at once, she slumped. He had to tighten his grip to keep hold of her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“No you ain’t,” he said. “But you will be.”

“What are you going to do with me?”

“Well,” he said, yanking her up by her elbow and propelling her back into the bedroom. “Let’s have a look at the charge sheet, shall we?”

He pushed her face-down on to the bed, removed his shirt from her back, and used those same makeshift bonds she had restrained him with to secure her wrists together above her head, and then to each of the outer bedposts. She raised her head to cast a wary look at him as he relit the candle.

“It was just that I need the money,” she pleaded. “You would do the same, in my straits.”

“Would I now?” He perched himself on the edge of the bed, looking down at her. His cock twitched again, fully recovered. He always liked to see a woman at his mercy, but the ones he usually found in his cells were toothless and raddled, not choice pieces like this naughty Nancy. By rights, he should turn her in, since she was clearly not to be trusted, but on the other hand, why not enjoy himself while he could?

“So, Nancy, we have the theft of a pocket watch, the assault of a police officer, the resisting of arrest, the performance of an act of gross indecency, the false imprisonment of a police officer and a full-scale attempted robbery.” He enumerated each charge on his fingers, finishing with his head cocked to one side, sternly quizzical. “What do you think you should get for that little lot?”

“You’re an accomplice to the gross indecency,” she said sulkily, making him chuckle softly.

“Not sure the jury would see it that way,” he said, “what with me being a respectable gentleman and you being a common little sneak. Transportation at least, I reckon, with a few lashes in the prison yard on top.”

“Transportation? Oh, I couldn’t.”

“Or a good long spell of hard labour on the treadmill. Picking oakum till the skin’s peeled off your fingers. How does that strike you?”

She kicked her legs and wailed into the pillow.

“If you will just show me a little mercy,” she said, raising her head again, “I swear I will do whatever you want. I swear it. I know I tried to deceive you before, but I know now that it can’t be done. You will be able to trust me from this time forward. Please believe me, sir.”

“Some people can’t be helped,” he said, shaking his head. “After all I’ve given you.”

“I never had no choice,” she muttered.

“Oh, and you were _begging_ me to take my hand away from between your legs, weren’t you, girlie?”

She kicked her legs again. Her bottom, inside his overlarge long johns, jiggled temptingly. “Just do whatever it is you’re going to do.”

“I’ll give you a choice,” he said, having to clench his hands in order to keep them away from her helpless body. “I can take you down to the lockup tonight and have you in front of the magistrates tomorrow morning, ready to make your acquaintance with the treadmill.”

“Or?” she asked, with a hopeful inflection.

“Or you can stay here with me, and do as we agreed.”

She turned her face to him, her eyes sharp with disbelief.

“You’d give me another chance?”

“You’ll have to earn it, mind.”

She nodded. “I will. I promise.”

He put his hand on her neck and bent low until his face was close to hers.

“From now on, Miss Nancy No-Name, you belong to me. I give you your orders, and you carry them out. Without question, without hesitation. But be very, very sure, my girl, that there is no place in this wide world you can go where I would not find you. I have connections across this city, and across the oceans, from Limehouse Cut all the way to China. If I put out word that I want you found, you will be found. Do you understand that?”

He watched the soft flex of her throat as she swallowed.

“I understand,” she whispered.

“Good.” He drew his thumb along the line of her neck, settling it beneath her earlobe. “That’s settled, then. But that doesn’t mean I’m letting you off for what you did. Nobody tries to make a mug of Jedediah Shine without experiencing severe retribution.”

She cast her eyes down.

“I know I deserve it,” she said, pressing her face back into the mattress. “What are you going to do to me?”

At last his hands were free to wander where he willed. He put his palm down on the slope of one buttock and patted it gently.

“I’m going to give you what every little prig would get, if I had a say in the making of laws,” he said. He moved his hand to the waistband of the leggings and gave them a sharp tug downwards. Pale, smooth moons were unveiled to his rapacious view. His mouth watered, picturing the transformation he had in mind for them.

Nancy gave a little hiccup of agitation. “Will you untie me first?” she asked, clearly understanding what he had in mind.

“What, so you can give me the slip again? I don’t think so.”

He knelt beside her, watching her pull helplessly at the rope ties before taking a rough hold of her waist, stilling her with immediate effect. He saw her gluteal muscles clench and he smiled wryly, knowing that this defensive mechanism would be perfectly ineffectual.

“Get your arse up,” he ordered, grabbing a pillow and sliding it beneath her pelvis to elevate his target area. “That’s more like it. Now, take it like a trooper. I don’t want you waking the whole neighbourhood.”

His palm descended rapidly on her proffered cheeks, rewarding him with a percussive crack that delighted his senses. Soft rose pink bloomed in the approximate shape of his hand. He admired it for a second, then repeated the process.

Nancy took this opening salvo well, emitting no cries and keeping herself submissively still while he laid on smack after smack. She accepted her punishment meekly for all of half a minute, until her discomfort became too much to bear without protest.

Soft gasps were absorbed into the bedclothes, and Jedediah had to strengthen his hold on her waist to keep her from twisting away from his corrective attentions.

“Now then,” he admonished. “You said yourself that you deserve this. Keep still.”

“It stings like the devil,” she mewled, but he made no effort to soften his approach; indeed, he stepped it up in both speed and heft so that she had recourse to yelping and kicking her way through the pain.

“Then you’ll remember it, won’t you?” he said, watching her chastened cheeks as they progressed from muted pink to ever deeper shades of fiery red. His breath shortened in his lungs. He was painfully erect. He had tried, on occasion, to interest Blush Pang in this form of erotic recreation, but each attempt had resulted in her fingernails embedded in various parts of his anatomy. Which had charms of its own, but sometimes he wasn’t in the mood for a challenge. Sometimes he just wanted to have things all his own way.

Most of the time, if he was honest.

He was certainly getting it all his own way with young Nancy. She was hopelessly unequal to the task of fending him off. Her pathetic struggles turned to passive resignation; she still moaned into the coverlet, but she had no more fight left in her body. Her bottom now was a deep sunset crimson, the skin hot to his touch.

He delivered a few final strokes, then moulded his palm to the heated surface of his handiwork, taking a moment to appreciate the fierce, tight tension in his loins. He could get used to this. He felt like a god, having exacted vengeance, holding dominion over everything.

“There now,” he said, panting slightly, aware of the sweat beading on his brow and running into his hair. “I trust you’ve learned your lesson?”

 

 

“Mr Shine?” The voice on the other side of the door was querulous. “Mr Shine? Is everything all right in there?”

Jedediah wrenched his eyes from Nancy’s reddened bottom for long enough to assure his housekeeper that all was well.

“You’re sure? Only I did think I heard something…”

“It was nothing, Mrs Higgins. Go back to bed now.”

He waited a few seconds, until the telltale creak of the middle stair told him that she was on her way downstairs to her basement kip, then returned his attention to his little spanked captive.

“Any louder and she might have walked in on us,” he remarked. “How would you have liked that?”

“I couldn’t keep quiet,” said Nancy. “It hurt such a lot.”

He contemplated this for a moment. “I wonder,” he said, “that you didn’t beg me to stop. I was waiting for pleas and entreaties – but I never got ‘em. Why is that?”

He ran a hand over the warm slopes of her bottom, thinking that he might have an inkling as to the answer. More a hope than an inkling. A remote hope.

“Because,” she whispered, then she rubbed her face into the coverlet. “No, I cannot say.”

He chuckled, his hopes rising, the inkling spreading.

“You had better,” he said. “Strikes me you ain’t in a position to defy me down there, and I have a good thick leather razor strop just over by the washbasin that I might like to try out on you.”

She whimpered, then stiffened.

“Well?” He put his hand on her thigh, near the top. It was lightly sheened with a steamy damp. If he wasn’t much mistaken, the girl’s cunny was every bit as heated as her rump. “Tell me then. Why didn’t you ask me to stop?”

“You wouldn’t have done anyway,” she said.

“No,” he agreed, then, after an arch pause, “Is that your reason?”

She turned her face to him and something in the fierce defiance of her expression squeezed at his heart.

“I _liked_ it,” she said, daring him to disbelieve her. “All right? I don’t know what it makes me, and I don’t care, but there it is.”

He had intended to keep his countenance, to extend the suspense, but a broad smile spread itself across his face without invitation.

“Do you mean that?” he said, pressing his fingertips into the soft skin of her inner thigh.

“You don’t have to ask me,” she said huskily. “There’s proof enough, if you go looking for it.”

He released a shuddering sigh. _What_ had he got hold of here? A gift from the gods, no two ways about it. If he was a religious type of cove, which he wasn’t, he’d be down St Anne’s later that morning lighting a candle of thanksgiving.

“Oh, you little…” He moved his hand up to where her nether lips nestled in downy curls whose slippery state gave away the truth of Nancy’s confession. He bathed his fingertips in her wetness, then spread apart her legs that he might see it with his eyes.

“So that’s got you hot and bothered, has it?” he murmured, lowering his head to breathe in her musk. She sighed and wriggled her bottom in brazen invitation. “’Cos I could say the same…”

Kneeling between her parted thighs, he took hold of his erection and guided it towards her well-soaked entrance.

“Don’t you worry, I’ll sort you out,” he growled, clapping a hand on her shoulder.

“You’ll be careful,” she said quickly. “I can’t be having no babies.”

“I know what’s what,” he said. “Now, get ready.”

She moaned with gratitude as he slid inside her. He shut his eyes and chewed on his lip, glorying in the sweet heat and tightness he entered, trying to keep himself in check until he was fully seated. He didn’t want to have to pull out before he was even all the way in.

But she held him so perfectly, a luscious velvet grip that seemed tailored for his cock. He was going to have to distract himself somehow until the fever waned enough for him to continue. Fucking Reid. That was something to get his mind on the straight and narrow. Edmund Fucking Reid.

He growled a little at the back of his throat, holding steady, picturing his fist in that sanctimonious moon face. Ah yes. Reid at his feet, the victory won. That would do the trick.

He flexed his hips, grinding himself a little harder into the depths of Nancy’s luxurious cunny. Her rosy haunches were hot against his pelvis. That was the ticket, sweet God, this was what he’d been missing…

And now he was master enough of himself to move into action, drawing back with initial caution, taking it slowly and carefully until she began to push into him, squeezing at him as he thrust, begging him for more speed, more depth, more vigour.

Well, he could give her that, all right.

Her little yelps as he powered into her, the way she clawed at the covers and worked so hard to keep up with his pace kept his lust at fever pitch. Her tied wrists, jolting and yanking with each thrust, and her scarlet-stained buttocks augmented it. It was exquisitely depraved, and he was wild for her, almost beyond reason…

Almost, but not quite, for after she howled and trembled her way through a wave of ecstasy, he remembered in time that he must withdraw from her first before enjoying his own. He pulled out quickly and watched his seed paint an abstract pearlescent portrait across the bottom he had already marked as his own in a different way.

“Oh, you bad, bad girl,” he crooned, coming to lie in sweat-soaked exhaustion beside her.

“You ain’t no better, Mr Police Inspector,” she whispered with a tired grin.

He scooped her up and kissed her fulsomely.

“No more I ain’t,” he agreed. “Seems to me we’re well suited.”

Their hearts beat against each other in the darkness, two unquiet spirits brought together by lust. Jedediah found himself optimistic about their prospects.

All the same, he didn’t untie her wrists until she was fast asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Jedediah did not, as a rule, spend a lot of time frequenting the many old clothes stalls to be found in amongst the lively street markets of the East End. A snappy dresser himself, he had been nicknamed ‘Brummel’ by some of his less respectful – or fearful, perhaps – underlings and he rather cherished the moniker as a tribute to his taste and discernment.

He knew that some of the stuffed shirts in the Met hierarchy thought his style flashy and more suited to a swell mobsman than a police inspector, but they could stick their sober neckties and plain waistcoats up their clenched arses for all Jedediah cared.

A man’s suit of clothes was his shop window; much better to lure your customers in with fine display than put them in mind of a funeral director.

No, no slop clothing or second hand for Jedediah Shine. He employed the services of a Jewish refugee from Warsaw whose fine tailoring had been legendary among the gentlemen of that city until the 1881 pogrom had forced his flight. He performed the useful secondary service of teaching Jedediah a modicum of Yiddish, which he sometimes found helpful when his work took him into that particular immigrant community.

Today, however, he found himself on Petticoat Lane, sorting through a variety of – appropriately enough – petticoats.

Nancy needed clothes, and the clothes needed to be of a kind to make her blend into the nighttime life of Whitechapel. Like every other man living east of Aldgate, Jedediah knew that the best way to do that was to gussy up like a tart. On those particular streets, no other kind of woman was to be found after dark, unless you counted the drunks, and most of those were on the game anyway.

“Look at that lacework, beautiful, ain’t it?” The girl behind the heaped stall put her hand on her hip and winked at him. “For a sweetheart, sir?”

“I wouldn’t call her sweet,” he said. “But it’ll do for her. How much for all this lot?” He proffered an armful of brightly coloured, vulgar items, conscious that the girl probably thought he was setting up shop as a ponce.

She named her price and he bartered it down to less than half, then left with the clothes wrapped in a package under his arm.

“Any trouble from our guest, Mrs Higgins?” he asked, passing through the hallway where his housekeeper was on a stepladder, running a duster over the picture frames.

“Quiet as a mouse,” she said primly. It was clear that she didn’t approve of Jedediah’s latest company, but it wasn’t her place to say it – or even imply it, thought Jedediah, wondering whether to point this out. In the event, he decided that it wasn’t worth the bother.

“She hasn’t been downstairs, then?”

“Unless she’s jumped out of the window.”

That was a possibility, thought Jedediah grimly, but when he entered the bedroom he found Nancy still in a horizontal state, crowded around with pillows and bolsters.

“Oi, Sleeping Beauty,” he said, perching on the side of the mattress and ruffling her hair. “Your prince is here.”

Yawning and delightfully tousled, she sat up, blinking the sleep from her eyes.

“What time is it?”

“You’ve missed breakfast and lunch and you’re about to miss afternoon tea if you don’t look lively.”

“I can’t help it if I’m knackered,” she protested. “It’s your fault anyway, keeping me up all night.” She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. “How comes you’re so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed anyway? You made some kind of deal with the devil so you don’t need to sleep?”

“You’ve rumbled me,” he said, depositing a kiss on her sleepy-warm forehead, then her pouting lips. “Get out of there before I’m tempted to get back in the saddle. Go and wash and put these on.”

He dropped the parcel on the bed.

Nancy eyed it curiously and made a slow, wincing progress out of the bed.

“Cor, stone me, I’m stiff as a board,” she exclaimed.

Jedediah watched her, enjoying her unselfconscious nakedness as she ouched and aahed her way to the washbasin.

“You’ll need to move a bit quicker than that tonight,” he remarked. “My man’ll leave you for dust. He’s a heavy-set type, too. A ponderer. You ought to outpace him with one leg tied behind your back.”

She turned to him, brandishing a sponge.

“Maybe you might have thought of that before you set to ravaging my poor body. Look at me – I can’t hardly walk.”

“You’ll mend,” said Jedediah, wiping away a gathering of sweat beneath his moustache. The quicker she got dressed, the better. His trousers were already becoming uncomfortably tight. A small bruise on the swell of her backside reminded him of how it had looked with the red imprint of his hand on that spot. Now she dabbed at glistening trails of dried-on semen, removing the traces of him until her skin was pristine.

Face washed, teeth cleaned and hair tamed, she turned her attention to the package.

“What’s this?” she said, holding up a bright red silk flower.

“For your corsage, ain’t it?” he said carelessly. “All the street girls wear ‘em.”

“Street girls?”

Jedediah laughed at her outrage.

“What, you think you’re too good for it, do you? A common sneak thief couldn’t lower herself.”

“Shut your mouth. You think you’re better than me, but you ain’t. You’re one stroke of bad luck away from my position, that’s all. You could lose your job tomorrow – and then what would you do?”

“Any number of things,” he said. “First on the list, I’d fight for money.”

She blinked. “You’d have to be good.”

“I am. Very.”

“All right,” she conceded, subsiding a little. “But it’s easier for a man, anyhow.”

“Don’t you spin me that line, girlie,” he said scornfully. “I’ve had to sweat blood to get where I am today. Nothing was given to me on a plate. There’s a hundred times I could’ve given up and let myself fall back into the gutter I came from. But that’s not what I’m made of, and you could learn a thing or two about perseverance from me.”

There was fury in her eyes, but he held her gaze aggressively and was gratified when she dropped hers and turned her attention back to the pile of clothes.

“A tart, though,” she moaned. “Couldn’t I have been a…I dunno…orange seller?”

“Not much call for oranges at that time of day, and I’m not about to invest my earnings in fruit anyway.”

She sighed. “I s’pose not.” She held up the skirt, scarlet and flouncy and a little too short to cover her ankles. “I had a bloke try and interest me in that line of business after my old man died,” she said. “And I always told myself I never would.”

“I’m not asking you to do it for real, for gawd’s sake. It’s a costume. Think of yourself as an actress if it helps.”

“Ooh, I like that,” she said, putting down the skirt and flashing him a feline smile. “Always fancied myself on the stage, down at one of the music halls. I’ve got quite a nice voice, people always say.”

“There you go then. Your latest role – the Whitechapel streetwalker with a secret nobody can guess.”

She rolled on a pair of stockings and pulled a camisole and a petticoat over them. Relieved as Jedediah was to have her nakedness covered, she still looked more appetising than he found comfortable, especially when she put her hands on her hips and began to sashay up and down the room in an exaggeratedly theatrical manner.

“I’m not a whore, you know,” she said in a strange accent she probably took to be genteel. “I’m a courtesan.”

He smiled, enjoying her irreverent display. She twisted her hips, swishing the petticoats around her ankles.

“It’s even a little bit true,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. “You could call me a kept woman, couldn’t you?”

“In a manner of speaking,” he admitted, not having looked at it this way before. Now she had said it, he found the idea intriguing. A woman, kept by him, for his amusement. Not the same set-up he had had with Blush Pang, who had always paid her way from the moment they set foot off the boat, but something more tailored to his own tastes and desires.

Didn’t he deserve something toothsome to come home to, after a long day on the lawless streets of Limehouse? And it wasn’t as if she would even cost him anything, bar a few bits of flim-flam and an extra chop here and there.

She struggled into the tight corset, her breasts swelling and spilling over the top as she pulled the strings tight from the front.

“The thing is,” she said, her breath a little short now, her look bold. She knew the effect she was having on him, the little devil. “I might play the part too well.”

“What do you mean?”

“I might get an offer that’s too good to refuse. I mean, look at me, all dolled up.” She had the skirt on now. She posed this way and that, pulling up a frill to expose her fishnetted calf, leaning forwards to show her cleavage to its full advantage. “There’s bound to be an eye caught here and there. A gent might have something to offer me that’s better than what you can give.”

He felt his hackles rise, an incipient growl at the back of his throat.

“What did I tell you before, about trying to hide from me?”

“I’m not saying anything about hiding from you, or getting away from you,” she said, sliding a feather into her hair. “I’m just saying I might earn myself something extra, while I’m about it.”

“You keep your legs together, my girl, while I’m not around,” he warned her, jabbing a finger in her direction.

“Or what?” she said, grinning, swivelling her hips, fluttering her eyelashes.

She was playing with him! He saw it and gave himself a metaphorical slap for letting himself be drawn in.

“I thought you told me I’d worn you out,” he said softly, stepping towards her.

“I’m made of strong stuff,” she said, her eyes sparkling with lascivious mischief. “I soon bounce back.” She clipped the corsage exactly where it showed her milky slopes to their best advantage.

He swooped on her, capturing her around the waist and pulling her in close. She vibrated against him, taut with excitement.

“Strikes me,” he murmured, his nose in her hair, his lips at her earlobe, “that if you’re going to be a convincing whore, it’s not enough to just look like one.”

He shoved her up against the wall, his hand in the forest of skirt and petticoat flounces.

“Oh no?” she said in a tight little voice.

“You need to smell like one,” he said, freeing himself from his trousers.

One hot, sticky, grunting, yelping rut later, the technical verisimilitude was achieved. Nancy’s thighs were coated with a mix of male and female effusions and she was flushed all the way down her throat and across her décolletage.

“There,” whispered Jedediah, pulling down her skirts. “Now nobody can be in any doubt that you’re a girl who gets fucked for her supper. Now get on out there, to the address I gave you.”

He propelled her around by her shoulders and gave her a little shove towards the door.

“You’re a horrible man,” she said, giving him a look over her shoulder, such a sweet mingling of reproach and tenderness that he wanted in that moment to call her back and wrap her in his arms.

But there were bigger fish to fry, and besides, he had to go and put in an hour or two at the boxing gym. This bedding business was all well and good but it wouldn’t help him win the Lafone Cup.

So he simply acknowledged the truth of her accusation, and wished her a successful night.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Nancy had found the stoop of an abandoned house to sit on, and there she stayed for much of the night, shifting her bottom when the cold stone threatened to numb it. Every time she did this, she was reminded of the treatment the said posterior had received at the hands of…of him.

The man.

The bastard.

The bastard copper who’d nailed her at last and then made her feel something she hadn’t felt in such a long time. The _making her feel_ struck her as crueller than anything else he’d done that night by far. She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he’d awoken things in her she’d thought dead.

Excitement. Exhilaration. Desire. Even tenderness.

Sparks of something she recalled from long ago had flown between them in the bed and against the wall, between their lips and through the actions of their bodies. The scavenging drab had been remade again a sensual woman, and it was unbearable. She couldn’t live the life she’d led knowing that such richness existed and was open to her.

In order to stay sane, she had to forget all that and fasten her mind to simple survival.

“Not as if he’ll want more than a quick bunk up anyway,” she muttered to herself. “He got what he wanted. He’ll use me as he needs, then kick me out. Don’t you dare hope for anything more than that.”

Her low-spoken words caught the fleeting attention of a passing man.

He eyed her gravely then walked on, his shoulders massive in his well-cut tweed coat.

Oh! Was that him? The quarry?

She sat forward, following his progress across the street and into one of the tall terraced houses, its aspect as mournful as that of its owner, opposite.

_Arrived home, twenty after twelve,_ she noted.

Jedediah had lent her the fob watch that had led to all this in the first place. It was a token – if she was naïve, she might think it a token of trust, but she knew there was more to it than that.

He was testing her.

If she disappeared into the night-time throng, as she so easily could, her future would be comfortable for a few days. The watch would fetch a handsome price – but then, he knew which fence she used, and would be down on him straight away. The watch would be reclaimed and her association with Solomon Lipski would be at a formal end.

Nobody to fence to. No means of making a living.

But, she thought, she could use the watch money to set up in some other small way. Street selling, perhaps – flowers. She liked flowers. She could take a basket up to the wide bright streets further west and shrug off this old torn life like a coat.

Oh, yes, that might be a path she could take.

But she would be looking over her shoulder forever and a day, and one of those days would be the one when she got tapped by a copper she hoped never to see again.

And then what? Hard labour for sure.

“Leave London,” she murmured. “Start again in some little place. By the sea.”

Could she do that and be sure that Jedediah Shine would never find her? She shuddered and wrapped her brightly-embroidered shawl closer around her shoulders. Common sense dictated that she wasn’t so important to him that he would take too much trouble to find her. But common sense wasn’t always right about these things. Some men never let even the littlest thing drop. She suspected Jedediah Shine of being such a man.

“And I am a very little thing,” she sighed.

“A pretty little one,” said an unexpected voice.

Looking up, she saw that she was being leered at from the area railings. The leerer was carrying a half-empty pint pot. His hat was at an angle, covering half an eye. His nose was red and he lacked several of his upper teeth.

“We’ll get comfortable, shall we?” he said. “Down them steps. Nobody’s lived in this place for nigh’n a year. We shan’t get caught at it.” He paused. She sat impassively. “Come on then. I’ve got the readies.” He patted his pocket, which clinked slightly.

“I ain’t doing business,” she said. “You’ll have to find another girl. There’s plenty down the street.”

“You what? You sit there, bold as brass, with your…” He was struggling to speak coherently; that pint pot wasn’t his first of the night. “Your…bubs half out and your skirts up there…and got the nerve to tell me…fucking whores…you get down those steps and on your knees…’fore I…”

Nancy stood, trying to maintain a calm façade, her hand wrapped tight around Jedediah’s watch.

“I’ve told you,” she said. “I’m closed for business. Earned enough to keep me going and don’t want to take no more tonight. There’s two girls I can see from here on the corner of the street. One blonde, one brunette. Go and give one of them your pennies.”

He made a lunge. She sidestepped and he tripped and fell clumsily. He got to his feet more quickly than she bargained for, though, and she found herself pushed against the railings with his substantial beergut pressed into her and a meaty fist compressing her chin so that her mouth was crumpled in its folds.

“Don’t want one of them,” he growled. “I saw you first. I don’t care how many men’ve had you tonight. You’ll take one more or I’ll smash that pretty face right up.”

“I think not, sir.”

A voice, deep and authoritative, rang from the other side of the street. Nancy twisted her head enough to see that her quarry stood in his doorway in shirtsleeves, holding a candlestick in a manner that suggested he knew exactly how it could be deployed as a weapon.

“Let her go,” Inspector Reid continued, crossing the street now. “Come on, you have had far too much to drink. I shall have you put in the cells at Leman Street if you do not go on your way immediately.”

“Who d’you think you are?” The drunk swung a clumsy fist that glanced off Reid’s shoulder, barely connecting at all.

Reid took his arm and twisted it.

“I’m Inspector Reid of H Division,” he said through gritted teeth. “Now will you go or must I kick you from here to the cells?”

“Gerroff me! I’m going, I’m going.”

Reid released the man roughly, so that he stumbled and almost fell to his knees before grabbing the railings and using them to propel him down the street with as much speed as he could muster.

“Did he hurt you?” Reid asked, turning to Nancy.

“No, no. I’m just…I’m all right.”

But she was shaken, and it came out in her voice and the trembling of her legs.

“You seem in need of fortification,” said Reid gently. “Can I offer you a tot of brandy, at least?”

Oh, a tot would be bliss itself. Nancy could not resist – and after all, Jedediah could scarcely complain. Were he here, he would tell her to take the offer.

“You’re very kind, sir,” she said, taking Reid’s arm and moving slowly across the street. “I hope I don’t keep you from your rest.”

“Oh, I don’t sleep much these days,” he said, and there was such infinite sadness in it that she caught a breath and looked at him more closely.

His parlour was dark and a mite dusty, but the brandy he poured her swept away any misgivings about her surroundings Nancy might have had.

She sat opposite Reid in a threadbare armchair and sighed with pleasure as the liquid stoked a delightful fire in the pit of her stomach.

“I haven’t seen your face before,” Reid remarked.

“Should you have?”

“I get to recognise the better-known working girls around here,” he said. “They fetch up at Leman Street with monotonous regularity. But you’ve kept yourself out of trouble, I presume.”

“I’m new to the area,” she said. “Haven’t really found my feet yet.”

“Excuse me – I should have introduced myself. I am Edmund Reid,” he said. “What is your name?”

“I’m…Jess,” she said, remembering how this had not worked on Jedediah, and expecting Reid to be similarly unconvinced. However, if he had any suspicions, he did not voice them.

“Well, Jess, when faced with young women in troubled circumstances, I always offer the name of an acquaintance who has a house in Bethnal Green which is open to any woman who wishes to put her past behind her.”

“I don’t want to be reformed, thanks.”

“Should you change your mind, her name is Veronica Deering. Her house is on the Cambridge Heath Road.” He took another sip of his brandy. “I hope that you will at least go home for the night now.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said, warming to her character. “I dursn’t go home without enough coin. My man’d have something to say about it, and it wouldn’t be respectable language.”

“Your man? He puts you up to this?”

Jess found herself more at ease with this version of her situation. Somehow she did not quite like the idea of Inspector Reid thinking she sold herself willingly.

“I have to do it,” she said, “or else we’d starve. But it was not my idea.”

“So you are his only girl?”

“Oh yes. I should bleedin’ well hope so.”

Reid nodded.

“A new pimp is what this district does not need,” he said. “But he puts you in danger, Jess, every night he sends you out on to these streets. Does that not trouble him?”

“Not as much as it troubles me, I dare say.”

“The Ripper was abroad not so long ago, on these very streets.”

Nancy shivered. “I recall it. We all do.”

“And yet…”

“The Ripper’s gone, though, ain’t he? Everyone knows it. You know it.”

“None of us can know it for sure.” He put down his empty glass. “Let me walk you to your lodgings.”

“Oh! No, you needn’t, really. Besides, I shall probably go and find myself another punter…”

He reached into his inner pocket and drew out a small drawstring bag, from which he extracted a shiny shilling.

“There,” he said. “Here is what your notional punter has paid you. Just do not spread it abroad that I have paid you for your services.”

His smile was melancholy but infectious. Jess smiled back, finding herself unable to fight him.

“Like I said, you’re very kind,” she said, looking at the coin as it lay in her palm.

“And now I will accompany you through these streets,” he said, “until I have seen you safely home. No, I insist.”

He stood up, towering above her, and extended a hand. She could only take it.

Reaching the end of the street, she gasped suddenly and entreated him to have a care behind him. He turned away in curious investigation, leaving her just enough time to double back and flit down the nearest alleyway. For a short while she could hear his voice calling her assumed name, but he did not pursue it for long and the streets fell back into the habitual night time rustling of rats and yowling of cats.

Nancy took time to gather her breath, standing with her back flat against a courtyard wall, watching the flicker of candlelight in the only window that wasn’t blank with darkness.

What was she to do now? If she went back to Shine’s house, he would want to know what had happened, and perhaps he would dismiss her from his service. The dream of three square meals a day and a warm bed with an even warmer bedfellow might be over before it had begun.

But she could hardly trudge these streets for the next five hours either.

She took the shilling Reid had given her and placed it on the back of her hand.

“Heads I go back, tails I stay out,” she whispered, tossing it into the air.

 

 


End file.
